The effect of phonon scattering on the switching response of carbon nanotube field-effect transistors.

The performance of carbon nanotube field-effect transistors is analyzed numerically, using the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism. The effect of electron-phonon scattering on both the DC and switching response of these devices is studied. For the calculation of the switching response, the quasi-static approximation is assumed. The role of the electron-phonon coupling strength and phonon energy are investigated. Our results indicate that scattering with high-energy phonons reduces the on-current only weakly, but can increase the switching time considerably due to charge pile-up in the channel. Conversely, scattering with low-energy phonons reduces the on-current more effectively, but has a weaker effect on the switching time.